Foo Fighters, Iggy Pop, Beyonce and more: V Festival through the years - in pictures

As Virgin V Festival looks to celebrate its 22nd year, we've taken a look back at the festival through the years in pictures.

The festival began back in 1996 with Pulp headlining the opening year, due to Jarvis Cocker essentially creating the idea for V Festival as he claimed that he’d love to play two outdoor venues in two days.

After his promoters rallied around, and added further acts to the bill, they managed to secure two sites, one of which is still home to V Festival today in Hylands Park, Chelmsford. V Festival was the first festival to implement the twin site idea.

Other bands that played the first V Festival included the likes of Paul Weller, Supergrass, The Charlatans, Gary Numan and more.

V Festival was originally televised by Channel 4 from 1997 to 2013 before moving to MTV from 2014 to 2015 and to Channel 5 in 2016.

In 1997 and 1998 the likes of Blur, Foo Fighters, Iggy Pop, Green Day, Robbie Williams and James Brown performed as well as Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Coldplay.

The Killers have headlined the festival the most times - headlining in 2007, 2009 and 2014, but their very first V performance was in 2004 opening for the likes of Kings of Leon, Massive Attack and Elbow.

Last year, patrons of V Festival were treated to the likes of Justin Bieber, Sia, Faithless, Bastille, Jess Glynne, Rihanna, David Guetta, Kaiser Chiefs, Little Mix, Jake Bugg and others playing across the weekend.

This year top artists Jay-Z, P!nk, Craig David, Ellie Goulding, Stormzy, Rudimental, Sean Paul, Dizzee Rascal and many more will take to the stage from August 19 to 20.

For more information on this year's festival, click here